1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer networks, and more particularly but not exclusively to mapping and location discovery of computers in computer networks.
2. Description of the Background Art
Computer viruses, worms, Trojans, rootkits, and spyware are examples of malicious codes that have plagued computer systems throughout the world. Malicious codes, which are also collectively referred to simply as “viruses” or “malware,” may be detected using antivirus techniques implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of hardware and software. An antivirus may employ a scan engine and malicious code patterns, which are also referred to as “virus patterns.” To scan data for viruses, the scan engine compares the content of the data to the virus patterns using a pattern matching algorithm. The data is deemed infected if a match is found. In that case, various cleaning steps may be performed to prevent the virus from proliferating including quarantine, disinfection, removal, alerting the user or administrator, and so on. Virus patterns have to be continually updated to keep up with the ever increasing number and sophistication of malicious codes.
Organizations with a relatively large computer network may operate a scan server for providing antivirus modules (e.g., antivirus, updates, etc.) to client computers belonging to the network. The scan server may receive antivirus modules from the vendor of the antivirus for distribution to the client computers. The scan server may also be used to manage antivirus and other security operations in the computer network. One problem that arises in these computer networks is that a client computer roaming from one network location to another will have to be reconfigured manually to connect to the scan server in the current location. This can be tedious to the network administrator depending on the size of the network, the number of scan servers in the organization, and the number of users moving from one network location to another. Additionally, even when a client computer is manually configured to connect to a particular scan server, the client computer has no way of identifying its location in the computer network when that scan server is down.
A more general concern is that mobile computers, such as laptops, notebooks, tablet PCs, etc., are used in more than one location without the capability to automatically discover whether they are still in the private computer network of their organization or have moved to a public computer network. This poses a problem to network administrators who want to set up different security policies for the client computers depending on whether they are on the private computer network or on a public computer network, such as the Internet.